Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 808: Thou Shall Not Steal

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:Thou shall not steal”

Yesterday there were many places on the internet that were dark in protest and demonstration of not supporting current legislation regarding internet piracy. The SOPA/PIPA bills have caused quite a stir and controversy between content creators and content distributors. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are not happy with each other right now. This is not a new struggle and it predates the internet. Content creators have always been highly protective of their intellectual property (rightfully so) and done all they can to maximize the opportunities from their work. Before the internet, copying, plagiarism, recreating, etc. were all there. The internet and file-sharing (which Napster introduced many of us too) just made the problem worse and put the opportunity to use and manipulate intellectual property in the hands of the masses. Technology companies want to democratize content distribution so that more people can see and enjoy the content creators’ work. At the heart of the issue, and there is a compromise and a middle-ground to be reached; it is about the respect of another and being honest, or not. It comes down to basic values that are either followed or not. If someone steals from another, there will be repercussion and backlash, whether it is legislated or not. We are all better off starting from a place of honesty to build trust and when that happens consistently then many of the questions fall away.

Moses brought us God’s written word when he delivered the Ten Commandments. God knows our nature so He had to be blunt and clear with us, “Thou shall not steal”. Sounds easy to understand, but if it is so easy to not to do, then why did God have to tell us not to do it? Because, Father knows best, that’s why! We should all take a good hard look at ourselves and how we work. Do we steal? On the big things, of course not, but how about on the little things where cutting a corner, smoothing out an expense report, knocking off an hour early here and there, taking credit for someone’s idea, copying that photograph from the web for our work without paying for it? Do we do those? The little things are as big, if not bigger than the obvious stuff. At least, in God’s eyes they are. He didn’t say “Thou shall not steal the big and noticeable stuff”. At the heart of who we are, let’s be sure that we don’t find ourselves stealing.

Reference: Exodus 20:15